Coming Home
by RooC
Summary: There's a new Sheriff in town - How John and Donna met and fell in love. Takes place before the film.


**Coming Home  
**

_FALL 1984_

Deputy John Biebe heard the sound of approaching skates biting long clean strides in the black ice behind him as he knelt to tighten the lace on his left skate. The shoelace in question had been broken and retied so many times it was starting to fray and it was hard to keep it as tight as he liked it.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw a large dark form approaching faster than any living thing that size seemed to have a right to. He couldn't help smiling as the human freight train approached. Tree.

"Johnnie! Hey, Johnnie, did you hear?" Adam "Tree" Lane was closer now and Biebe pushed to his feet to greet him, nuzzling a little into the muffler wrapped around his neck for warmth.

Tree was a big guy, six foot six or seven if he was an inch. The kind of big you wanted to be on your feet to greet.

_Shhhhhhuushht! _Tree's skates edged into the ice and he pulled up to a graceful halt at Biebe's side. John's sharp eyes softened into a smile. They'd been teammates in the Saturday game for a year now and, despite the large gap in their ages, Tree had been one of the first friends he'd made when he'd moved to town from Toronto fourteen months ago.

Little things like a few years didn't make a hell of a lot of difference in a town as small as Mystery.

"You skating the river, Johnnie? Can I come?" Lane retained a hint of French-Canadian patois which gave his speech a gently questioning tone.

"Sure, Tree, c'mon." John rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth and then dug his blades in, moving off at an easy pace, warming up.

They skated together silently for a long while, watching the sunrise over the frozen peaks of the distant mountain range.

As the sky lightened and began to turn pink and golden orange Biebe glanced over at the yeti-like teenager skating beside him. "Were you gonna say something, Tree?"

"What?" Small puffs of breath froze on the air before them with each word, hanging there for a moment as though they were cartoons from the Sunday funnies.

"When you came up?" John grinned over at his friend, panting a little now at the effort of keeping up with Tree's long strides. "You asked if I'd heard something?"

"Oh! Oh shit!" Tree slapped himself on the forehead with a huge mittened hand. He had good news, really good news. News that would make his friend happy, and that made him happy.

He liked Johnnie, had from the moment the new Deputy had caught him with a six-pack and instead of writing him up had only laughed and given him a light lecture and a ride home. He'd kept the beer, but Tree had figured that was all right. It kinda worked out like a welcome to town gift.

"I almost forgot, Godsakes! And this is really important."

"Yeah?" Biebe was working harder now, feeling the muscles in his legs sing out and his sweatshirt stick to his back. His eyes focused gratefully on the river bend up ahead that marked the half-way point, glad to see it coming, thinking about how good a hot shower would feel when he got back to the tiny apartment he rented over Lucky's, the town's one and only bar.

His eyes flashed up to the younger man's face. "So?"

"Charlie Danner."

"What about him?" John growled and tucked his chin, concentrating on the river bend again, willing his heart not to sink into his guts. Charlie Danner was not high on his list of favorite people.

Danner thought a lot of himself and spent too much time trying to convince other people that they should, too. Worst of all, one of the people ol' Chuck had been able to convince was Donna Clancy. As far as John Biebe was concerned Donna was both the prettiest and the nicest girl in Mystery.

Just the kind of girl he'd want for himself.

Although the she and Danner had broken up just before Donna had graduated last June, they were still seen together often enough that Biebe kept putting off asking her out.

In truth, he harbored a secret fear that Danner or someone very much like him would one day lure her off to Fairbanks or maybe somewhere even farther away. Far from Mystery. Far from him.

"Well, he's leaving." The young man was nodding at his own words. "Yep, he's off to New York City. He got himself a scholarship to some big school or somethin'."

"What?" Biebe dug his skates into the ice so hard that he lost his balance, arms pin-wheeling in a useless effort to stay upright. He landed on his ass on the ice, sliding a few feet before coming to a stop.

"Shit!" He tore off his knit cap, releasing a shock of unruly chestnut hair that immediately fell into his eyes. "SHIT!" He said again and threw his hat which skidded across the ice, coming to rest near the base of a snow bank.

"You okay, Johnnie?" Tree's dark eyes looked worried as he skated a nervous arc around his fallen teammate.

"No." Biebe stared at his skates. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he wanted to lay back and howl at the sky.

But he was twenty-three now - a grown man - much too old for such childish expressions of rage and loss. He would take this like a man. He would go on about his day as though nothing was wrong. And then - like any good man - as soon as his shift at the station was over he was going to get good and properly shit-faced.

"She's not goin', Johnnie."

"What?" Biebe's head came up with a snap.

"Donna." Tree was hunkered down beside him on the ice now. "She's not goin' with Charlie."

"Where'd you hear that?" John's blue eyes narrowed slightly, wondering what Tree knew and who he'd heard it from. In a town this small, word got around faster by talk than by telephone, but still…

"Well… Donna told Mary Jane, and Mary Jane? She told Missy…" Tree counted the names off on his mittened fingers like numbers. "And Missy, she was telling-"

Biebe held up a hand to stop him. "Okay, okay, I got it. You heard it around town."

He held out his arm and the younger man helped him back to his feet. "So what's this got to do with me?" He skated over to his hat, swooped down gracefully to pick it up and yanked it back down over his ears.

The big kid laughed. It was a soft chuffing sound, but it seemed to ring out over the early morning silence. "Oh, c'mon, Johnnie…" Tree's dark eyes were twinkling with suppressed laughter. "Everybody knows how much you like Donna." His grin spread wider. "Maybe even Donna."

That stopped John in his tracks again, but this time he didn't go down. He banked a curve and started skating back towards town, tossing a glance back at Tree, who followed. "Really?"

"Yeah, Johnnie."

"Who'd you hear that from? Missy?"

"Yeah." Missy Rogers was Tree's girl, older by a year and half his size but just as sweet.

Biebe skated a few more yards, letting this new piece of information sink in. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this. He'd spent the last year or so thinking that his crush on Donna was a well-kept secret.

He was skating slowly, lost in thought, letting his mind examine the situation from all angles, working it like a puzzle. That was the thing that people didn't always get about John on first glance - he was smart.

Just as smart as Charlie Danner, only not nearly so quick to open his mouth about it.

Tree's hands were in his jacket pockets now and his posture was one of impatience, but he knew Johnnie was working things over in his head and he didn't really mind slow skating for a bit if that's what his friend needed. "You gonna ask her out now?" he asked finally.

The smaller man's gaze cut to him and a quick grin splashed across his face, making his eyes light up and sparkle. He laughed, and Tree couldn't stop from grinning and laughing right along with him.

"You know what, Tree? I'm gonna. That's just exactly what I'm gonna do!" John clapped his friend on the side of his oak-like arm.

"Cool."

Tree laughed again and lengthened his stride, knowing that Biebe had to take almost two for every one of his, but knowing too that there was no real point in skating the river if you were gonna take it slow. The river was for building speed, just like skating the glacier was for building stamina. Godsakes, everybody knew that. "Hey, race ya back to town, eh?"

"You're on!" John whooped with a grin and took off, feet flying over the ice.

Tree gave him a five second lead, just to be sporting, then dug his skates in and took off after him, feeling happy, like he'd done his good deed for the day.


End file.
